Jaybro, weren't you one of the 'many' parties that 'raced' up the Aquarian to toss excrement and other debris on our two heroes? I bet you saw more than wooden figurines. LOL! Somehow, I can't see you being one of those tossers....

Pitch one has interspersed hooks and rivets for the first 60 feet, with a couple of bolts to save from the ground fall. At that point the angle eases just enough that I was able to free climb for another 35 feet or so, with a couple of bolts in that distance. The free climbing ends at a headwall that is 50 feet or so high. You stand on a small ledge, about 2 inches by 20 inches long. There is a bolt there. About 25 feet above that bolt, after hooking, there is another bolt. Took a couple of nasty falls there, narrowly missing the little ledge.

Pretty stiff climb...hardest I have ever done for sure. I still didn't see the ladder of steel everyone says is there.

Agreed Munge,don't see or hear you bitchin' about it or dissin' it though.

Mimi,could you be more specific about a)the pitches that have been climbed on the lead b)the ones you yourself have climbed,if any,my impression is that you are a highly skilled aid climber c)why it's cute or OK for "Chongo" to take big freight and a long time,but not these guys?

Seems like some pretty outstanding wall climbers have been up there and bailed due to difficulties/scary falls.If the WOS boys didn't have the required street creds and accomplished this route,seems all the more impressive.

Haters wanna hate, lovers wanna love. I don't even want none of the above.
I want to piss on you! Yes I do. I'll piss on you; I'll pee on you.

sence your body, your body is a Porta-Potty.
And my pee I'd kick; like it know's karate. (knows karate)
i'm ganna pee on you. drip drip drip pee on you.pisss on you piss on you.
And you'll never fell quite the same once u take a whiff of my Hershey stains.
I want to poop on u too.

"Pitch one has interspersed hooks and rivets for the first 60 feet, with a couple of bolts to save from the ground fall. At that point the angle eases just enough that I was able to free climb for another 35 feet or so, with a couple of bolts in that distance. The free climbing ends at a headwall that is 50 feet or so high. You stand on a small ledge, about 2 inches by 20 inches long. There is a bolt there. About 25 feet above that bolt, after hooking, there is another bolt. Took a couple of nasty falls there, narrowly missing the little ledge."

The description above is PRECISELY what I found. Since I am long retired from free climbing, I did not even attempt the free climbing bit, but managed to find a way to hook under it to the left, then up.

I stood on that 2" wide ledge, and you can get a no-hands rest there. I thought I remembered it as being a little wider, and I had frightening visions of hitting it and fully destroying my once-busted but now-rebuilt ankle. In fact, I was thinking of my bone doctor saying, "Right then, go use it. Just don't break it again cuz I won't be able to fix it next time."

Because the hooking is so desperate, because I had been up there for like four hours on toprope at that point trying to figure it out, and because I had already decided that there was no way I was going to try leading the route, and because my cheat-stick was "only" 15' long, I was unable to reach the next bolt by legit means. I used the rope that Ammon had fixed to skip one or two hook moves I couldn't figure out, after Tom had secured permission from Gabe. Somewhere near the top when I was run-out 25', one of my hooks blew, and I would have been into the Whipper Of My Life had I not been on toprope. My bone doctor would not have been impressed.

I hope Richard is smart enough to reply, "Yes, that's what we took," and leave it at that. That's even more stuff than I take on my big wall camping trips, so if for no other reason they should be commended for their hauling ability.

Or something.

Holy frig, Steve - why did you cut off the bit in your scan about the hole count? Let's see what they wrote in the book, and see how it compares to what they have written on the forum. What could be a better credibility check? Please rescan the whole part about the hole count, and let's see what they said, eh?

So far the only "eyewitnesses" that count are Ammon, Pete, Jody, and two guys from Looking Glass - nobody else counts because nobody else has ever set eyes on the route. What has been reported by those who have bothered to get on the route completely contradicts 25 years of spew.

Clueless, sure - they hadn't done anything like this and so over-geared - but to me it's still the essence of old school to just guess and go; onsight, clueless, and unannounced. Had we made it out around then I like to think we would have done something similar.

It's now documented by me, Ammon, Tom and Randy that there are no bathooks nor visible enhancements on the first two pitches. Our observations are 100% consistent with what Richard and Mark told us, and with what they have written. At any rate, the route is a wide-open slab, everything is visible. Walk to the bottom of the slab with a pair of decent binoculars, a pen and a piece of paper, and look at the first few pitches in detail from different angles, and write down what you see.

The first two pitches are wicked runout, and certainly not over-bolted. A better scope will no doubt reveal the same on the pitches above.

It is amazing to me that nobody has bothered doing this! Instead they perpetuate lies. And if you've been doing this for twenty-five years, you probably don't want anyone to go up there and look, and tell you otherwise.

As per Tomcat's request, we await Mimi's wall resume, and aid pitch lead resume, of which she has been amazingly and repeatedly vague.

Umm, right. In YOUR opinion. Are you dense enough to think that Jody was speaking from personal experience? Kind of discounts your little chest thumping exclamation about knowing who's opinion counts. If I had to guess I'd say he was excerpting the book.

"nobody else counts because nobody else has ever set eyes on the route."

Says who? Again, YOUR opinion. If I recall correctly, Slater did a bunch of the pitches on this route. Did he do it with his eyes closed? There are other eyewitnesses besides your pets.

and this one is even more precious:

"Had we made it out around then I like to think we would have done something similar."

And if your aunt had balls she'd be your uncle. Retro couldawouldashoulda chestbeating, even lamer.

I'll re-post what I saw and how I saw it here, I suppose. For reference, I guess...

"There are NO bathook holes on the first pitch. There are NONE on the 2nd pitch. Not looking up from the ground, and not looking from 1 foot away, while on the slab itself. There also were no bathook holes I could see while at the top of pitch two, looking up at the route with a 100-400 Canon L lens. This, on a 1.6 crop is effectively a 640mm lens. And, now that I think of it, I was also using a 2x teleconvertor, which would bring us to 1280mm. Pretty much a low-powered telescope, at that point.

This whole "Thousand Bolts to Horse Chutes" stuff is just crap. The bolts/rivets on the route are spaced 25-35' apart. I don't see this route as over-bolted by either today's standards or by yesterday's. Seriously, you can figure this all out from the base. You can see the bolt/rivet placement. If you have poor eyesight or feel you need to see higher, then bring some binocs. Surely, the folks thrashing Richard and Mark must have had these, as I'm pretty sure most FAist or potential FAists had them to search out possible lines.

But then, we all know that the bolt/rivet count isn't what any of this was about, to begin with."

Someone up above posted a little bit about an unfair comparison to climbs that climb crack sytems (which I highly prefer over slab) and how routes on the Apron would inherently/naturally require a few more bolts, just by the nature of the rock. ie; slab with no cracks. That's pretty much common sense and a logical conclusion to come to. Honestly, there are tons of climbs in the valley having a higher bolt count when doing a bolts-per-foot ratio. Everyone keeps talking about turning it into a sport climb, etc... Even as a sport climb, this would have a pretty bold count and pretty serious whips. Moreso than most things in the valley. Whoever does this, kudos to you. Good luck.

edit: That *is* a crazy amount of sh#t to take in a motorhome, let a lone on a wall tho! Youch!

The other eyewitness, elcapfool, saw plenty of evidence. Why are these observations being disregarded Pete and Randy?

No one has downplayed what Chongo was doing as cute and over the years, whenever it was known that anyone drilled a chicken bolt, added a rivet, or a bathook hole, or enhanced hook moves, they were criticized. This includes all the big dogs too. So, this argument doesn't fly.